5 reasons you should be using LinkedIn

Every business should be using LinkedIn. It is the platform for professionals in every sector. Small business owners elevate themselves to a more advantageous position compared to an equivalent business not represented on the platform.

So much more than a professional profile, LinkedIn offers unique features designed to improve business opportunities which have a realistic chance of increasing your bottom line. Here are five reasons you should be using LinkedIn.

Keep all your contacts and network in one place.

Business is people, but managing your contacts in so many different areas can quickly become confusing. With LinkedIn’s integrated instant messaging platform, it’s swift and straightforward to save all your contacts to have them only a click away.

At its core, LinkedIn is a networking platform and people who use it effectively love to meet new people and seek positive professional relationships. Networking should be every small business owner’s best friend as your connections on LinkedIn want to help, one connection could make a massive difference.

With networking taking a far more digital form, it’s available to everyone with an internet connection. If you were used to networking in person, it may feel daunting to take the plunge and meet new people online. Because of this, we’ve put together A Guide to Online Networking with a few useful tips if you’re feeling unsure.

However, with so many like-minded people in a similar position, you’ll be made to feel right at home in no time.

An excellent opportunity to showcase your products and services.

LinkedIn provides a dedicated social platform that provides business owners with every opportunity to promote exactly what it is they do. Depending on your business, it may not feel immediately obvious to be promoting it on LinkedIn, but by showing your passion to a group of professionals, you become the perfect promotional advocate.

Not only will you have the opportunity to showcase on your personal profile, but you can also create a business page which is accessible to everyone. This publicity, presented to fellow professionals, has the power to generate those imperative leads and referrals.

LinkedIn can reinforce your reputation, build your brand and provide lead generation opportunities.

Every business owner has to start somewhere. Thankfully, LinkedIn offers that precious head start everyone needs. No hard work required, just a simple sign-up, and you can cultivate your reputation and brand.

By creating content and utilising it on your business’s LinkedIn page, you build and reinforce how you want people to view you and your brand. It’s the ideal opportunity to express your passion and expertise, showing other professionals why you’re in business.

The platform was built for professionals, which means it was built with lead generation in mind. LinkedIn makes it effortless to drive traffic where you want them to go, whether that is to a specific piece of content, your website or to get in contact. LinkedIn is one of the top platforms to market your business as it provides the toolkit to target your ideal customer avatar.

Put simply, LinkedIn is a platform which, when used proactively, can help your business grow. If your business is growing, then that means more customers and more money in your pocket.

Increase your rankings on Google by using LinkedIn.

The more present you are on reputable online platforms, the higher you increase the chances of your name and brand being found on Google. While optimisations to your website will take time to climb those rankings, LinkedIn is already a high-ranking platform so results will reach the top considerably quicker.

While your business website is an essential step to visibility, you should also take advantage of the opportunity to use LinkedIn as a complementary addition to increasing your online visibility.

The best part about increased visibility is that it generally works in harmony with credibility. The more visible you and your business are, the more credibility will be attributed to your brand.

Easy access to competitor research and industry news.

You’re already working hard, so you don’t want to be spending your time searching the internet for information dotted around everywhere. It’s only going to waste your time. Instead, work smarter not harder by using LinkedIn to stay in front of industry news, directly posted and written by professionals. The LinkedIn news feed is excellent, and by connecting with more people and businesses you can stay in-the-know on the very latest news in your industry.

What’s better than that? Being able to tap into competitor information. An essential part of your business’s digital marketing strategy is social listening. Usually implemented in a customer-focused way, social listening can also be used to reveal your competitor’s strategies.

Check out what the competition is doing, find out what’s working for them and why that is. You can then use this information to your advantage, and compare it to your own strategy. This will give you valuable insights into how your competitor’s present their brand and how your brand fits in with that.

Don’t be afraid to connect with your competitors. After all, you have mutual interests which could translate into beneficial collaborations designed to elevate both businesses.

Get your business on LinkedIn.

There are no drawbacks to representing yourself and your business on LinkedIn. Ultimately, these reasons scratch the surface of what you can do with LinkedIn as it can be used as a powerful marketing tool.

However, it’s not enough to simply have a dormant profile (although that is better than no profile at all!) if you want to make the most of LinkedIn. Sharing content relating to your industry, whether it’s something you have created or something you have shared, shows that you are active on the platform.

Struggle with headlines? You’ll love FreshOnline.

Keeping up with providing fresh online content to publish and promote on LinkedIn can feel daunting. You may love your business, but it can be tough creating top-quality, in-depth, optimised content regularly to keep your audience engaged.

Here at FreshOnline, we offer a range of social media services from training to provide the necessary resources to run your online marketing effectively, to all-round social media management.

We love to chat, so if you have any questions or would like some more information, please contact us for a free, no-pressure conversation.